


Patterns of Insanity

by mrasaki



Series: No Disaster [1]
Category: Agent X, Cable and Deadpool, Deadpool (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst and Humor, Friendship, Friendship is Magic, Humor, In which the author indulges in old fandoms while procrastinating, M/M, Not Really Crack, Rare Characters, Rare Pairings, Rare Relationships, Sorry Not Sorry, not bffs, okay crack is always involved when it comes to deadpool but honestly its not really crack, taskmaster doesn't know how these things happen, taskmaster is a good buddy despite himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 14:35:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1473334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrasaki/pseuds/mrasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taskmaster was having a bad day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written after spending several days binge-rereading _Agent X_. And because this is always an issue with writing in a constantly changing comic book universe, there’s a caveat: I followed Deadpool only sporadically beyond C &D and lost track of Tasky past his most recent miniseries and the Dark Reign period, and I _definitely_ did not keep up with Cable or the X-Men, so characterizations and events in this fic are a potpourri of mostly C &D and Agent X, with random snippets from the more recent Deadpool series, all of TM’s various guest appearances throughout the years, and various doings in the Marvel 616 universe.
> 
> But, you don't need to know much about what the characters are up to lately anyway (answer: no good), except for this fact: Deadpool and Tasky are friends who don’t not like each other. And I have all sorts of feelings about that.
> 
> ETA: Now with art! ["What We Do in the Shadows"](http://xmen.crabhost.org/wtf2016/patternsofinsanity.png) (SFW) by [kyoshich](http://http://kyoshich.tumblr.com/), commissioned by Naid. Thank you!!

In the morning, a large spider crawled out of Taskmaster's car ventilator. He spent five seconds slapping at it and another fifteen minutes swearing loudly at the top of his lungs because his scalding Starbucks latte had found a new home in his lap.

At lunch, he was informed by the contact of a contact of a contact that by the way, he wouldn't be paid, and he had to waste the next few hours tracking down key members of the Chinese Triad and convincing them otherwise. This should have cheered him up, but Taskmaster's grim satisfaction was deflated by an email that his boot camp in Arkansas had been busted up by the Avengers, and now he owed somewhere in the range of $200,000 in back taxes. How _that_ worked, he didn’t know.

In the afternoon, Taskmaster was sneaking around the Avengers Tower on a standard recon and data grab mission and some freebie revenge sabotage, when he found himself suddenly surrounded by black-suited government goons. They hustled him into a tiny metal-walled room and played good cop, bad cop until he popped one in the nuts and knee-capped another, and it turned out the kidnapping and the taxes were just more of the same to pressure him to join whatever government goon agency was fashionable at the time, if by "pressuring" they meant "blackmailing" in the government sense of the word.

He managed to break out after a couple hours of some double-jointed contortions and a judicious application of explosives. Now it was late at night and he was driving back to his penthouse and thinking seriously about having a stiff drink or two, when a body came hurtling out of nowhere amid a shower of broken glass and landed with a loud WHUMP on his car hood. 

Taskmaster was having a bad day. 

He slammed on the brakes, the car jerking and swerving to a halt. He pulled his gun and got ready to break his foot off in the ass of whatever mouth-breather had chosen to trash his pride and joy and very expensive car, making the cherry topping on what had been a spectacularly terrible day.

He half-jumped out the door, then froze.

"Wade?" 

He lowered his gun but didn't put it away. He was chill. He could go with this. No stampeding superheroes or villains determined to kick Deadpool’s – or any inadvertent associate’s – ass had come out of the woodwork just yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time before life got even more too interesting for his tastes.

He'd just begun working out the logistics of simply scraping Deadpool off his hood and driving away when the merc in question came to with a snort and a spasm that whapped his hand hard against Taskmaster's chest. The impact made Deadpool crack open one eye, then the other, and blinked up at him. 

"Ugliest angel ever," Deadpool said in a tone of infinite sadness. 

"You're alive," Taskmaster replied, deadpan. "Hurray for me." 

Deadpool pried himself up and slid off the hood, the car creaking as he went, shattered glass making little grinding noises underfoot. He turned around and admired the dent in the exact shape of his ass and torso dimpling the dent-resistant carbon-fiber. "Was that me?" He sounded impressed.

"No, funnily enough some dumbass fell out of the sky and landed on my car _right_ where you are." 

"Don't need to be jealous, Tasky. Twenty minutes a day on the Stairmaster and you can have buns of steel too." 

"More like too many Twinkies." Taskmaster shifted, looking around uneasily. "You got people chasing you, or did you throw yourself off a building just for fun?" 

It wasn't as crazy a supposition as one might think. But Deadpool had pulled out his guns and was now crouching, scanning the buildings opposite to them with an alertness that belied his usual loquacious bullshit, so Taskmaster knew the answer to that, didn't he.

Fuck. 

Shouts of "HEY! YOU!" and even more original goonspeak like "GET HIM!" erupted from the doorway of the building across from them, accompanied by bullets whizzing wildly by and thudding into the car.

 _I am Jack’s_ total _lack of surprise_ , Taskmaster thought to himself grimly as he scrambled for cover behind the wheel well. Practically every time he saw the guy, it seemed like someone was trying their damnedest to kill him. Taskmaster could understand why, though most of the time he didn’t bother trying himself. It was wasted energy, really; Deadpool got maimed and dismembered and shot way too often for it to be purely involuntary; plus, stabbing a guy who didn’t scream or die properly but instead popped up off the ground and tried to give you an affectionate wet willie while bleeding on your cape took all the fun out of the exercise. 

There was a crack, then a grunt and a SPLOOOCH like an overripe watermelon bursting. Taskmaster just barely managed to close his eyes and mouth before he was splashed liberally with blood and brains.

Deadpool keeled forward from where he was kneeling and lay there with his face planted sideways into the asphalt, ass in the air, the back of his head gone.

Taskmaster threw up his hands. Well, this was just great. Fucking lovely. He’d been minding his own business, making his way home for some well-deserved R&R, and now his car was trashed, he was liberally covered with someone else's bodily fluids -- not the fun kind, either -- and being shot at in someone else's battle. And was that someone else now a twitching sack of meat at his feet? And was that someone else visibly re-knitting his brains before Taskmaster's very eyes? 

Ah – damn. 

Ah, _gross._

He dragged his eyes away, willing his stomach down, and tried to assess the situation. A peek over the trunk got a bullet winged by his head, so he didn't try again. Henchmen and gangsters were generally shoddy shots but was he going to risk his neck testing the theory for free? Hell no! 

A shot spanged next to his feet, and he cringed against the car. Christ, these guys’ aim was better than most. 

Low voices hissed orders, then cautious footsteps approached. He’d counted eight men during his abortive recon but now he only heard three, so the others were probably hiding in the building while sending the unfortunate new meat out to investigate. These seemed to have more smarts than the usual faceless meatheads they hired for these things, so they probably hadn't been his students. 

He waited, lying flat on his stomach and peering out from under the car, trying to ignore the pool of Deadpool’s brain juice seeping towards him. When they got close enough he shot their feet out from under them, then rolled out from behind his shelter and took out the windows of the adjacent building, pegging two guys with machine guns on the first floor and one in the doorway. 

Damn, he’d missed one, a young guy looking like he was recruited right out of junior high. The kid turned white when he saw Taskmaster reloading, then dropped his gun and ran like hell. Taskmaster put a bullet through the back of his head just in case the kid grew a new set of balls later and added to the numerous pains already in Taskmaster’s ass. 

Which sounded dirty as hell, he thought, then caught himself. He'd only been with Deadpool for ten minutes and already the merc was rubbing off on him. 

_That_ sounded dirty as hell too. Damn!

He got to his feet and looked around. The car was dented and bullet-riddled with what had to be high caliber rounds, .50s, at the very least, which were used for hunting rhinos and elephants. Thank christ for small favors that the car was still running. The henchmen—whoever they were—must've really wanted Deadpool...well, really dead. 

But the merc wasn’t doing the proper thing and _being_ dead. Some of his brain was growing back and parts were beginning to be covered with thin bone and stretched skin, and he was twitching and muttering something garbled that sounded vaguely pornographic. Drooling, too. 

More shouts. Taskmaster had an excellent sense of time and direction, and right now it was telling him it was TIME TO GO, in the direction of AWAY. 

He started manhandling Deadpool around the front of the car. "I'm not saving you for free," he informed the limp body as the passenger door opened with a grating chunk and struck Deadpool's outstretched thigh. "I hope you've got money because I don’t take charity cases -- oof -- and, another piece of friendly advice? Lay off the goddamn chimichangas, you lardass." He wrenched the door open and dumped Deadpool into the passenger seat, shoving at the limbs flopping out the door. 

Deadpool said almost clearly, " -- ludass muns mo' meady -- _meaty_ \-- lovin' --" and woozed out again, leaking blood and brain matter all over Taskmaster’s nice Italian leather upholstery. 

"Don't you wish," Taskmaster retorted and slammed the door, then downed another hopeful minion edging around in his peripheral vision. He jumped into the driver’s side as bullets began to zing and spang all around them again, and gunned the engine. "Please god you won’t remember your winkie this time," he breathed, and peeled out in a screech of expensive rubber. 

***

Dumping Deadpool at his own place would’ve been nice if he knew where the guy even lived. He couldn’t ask him, since he was being too noisy and disgusting to be dead, but was also being unhelpfully unconscious. 

It was just as well Taskmaster didn’t know. Deadpool tended to pick places in the most unsavory neighborhoods and the odds were high that even a car as trashed as Taskmaster's -- and highly protected and alarmed -- would be stripped and left up on blocks the minute his back was turned. That was just way beyond the call of being professional colleagues or friends or whatever Deadpool thought they were. Just—no.

Taskmaster was often paid extremely well to deal with that kind of crazy, but endangering a man’s car was over the line. 

Seemed to him, associating with or even just being near Deadpool always meant some sort of mess. Fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants, sloppy, downright unprofessional....mess. And it seemed like, lately he’d been getting more and more involved in Deadpool’s messes. It was a trend he’d have to sit down and investigate thoroughly sometime. 

"You definitely owe me now," he muttered under his breath. Two hours ago, he'd only been planning to get back to his place and get quietly shit-faced, and now he was hauling a guy who weighed more than the Blob -- and smelled like him, too -- into the elevator of his own penthouse building. He’d just gotten the fishtank readjusted after the last time, dammit.

"Mmmaraagph," Deadpool replied, blowing a nostril bubble. It probably didn’t mean _Yeah, no problemo, I’ll be right back -- gotta go rob a bank and pay you back for wrecking your limited edition Maserati._

"Are you being sarcastic?" 

"Pmmph." 

"Watch your language. You threw up in my car."

His spare civilian coat that he’d had in the car was discreetly Armani, black cashmere with bold yet tasteful grey pinstripes and a smooth silk lining. It was still new, not bought on sale, and he loved it. He’d also wrapped Deadpool in it. It hurt, deep down inside where the injuries to his car were festering, but he was also a pragmatic guy. The sacrifice was better than having to go back and clean up--or explain--a wide streak of blood all the way down the hallway from the parking garage to the elevator. 

The elevator dinged and opened onto the tenth floor. He spilled Deadpool into the hall, silently thanking whatever gods there were that he had discreet neighbors who wouldn’t comment on a bullet-holed and dented car, even hidden in a dark corner and covered as it was, or on a hooded, masked guy in a cape dragging a bloody body through the halls, or on other merc-related activities, even if it weren’t late enough that most people were asleep. 

He prodded Deadpool. A loud snore in response. Well, Deadpool was still alive and he supposed that was good, as long as Deadpool hadn’t bled through the coat and begun bleeding all over the fl—fuck. 

Taskmaster sighed and told him hopelessly, "Just don’t throw up again, you disgusting monkey," and shoved Deadpool's leg far enough into the hall to let the elevator door close. 

"Huuh huh. Heh babee, bac a' yr plaze? No' eben da firs' date." Deadpool had woken up enough to stare at him interestedly with one good eye, the other still rolled back into his head. Damn Deadpool, half his brain blown out and he was still talking. 

"No. Shut up." He wiggled his finger in the biometric lock impatiently until it beeped and the door to his penthouse swung open.

"Heh heh. Mea-dy lovin’. Meeeeeeea-dy." 

"Shut _up_." 

THE CAT sidled up and began to lick the gore. 

GAH. He hated cats. He hated _that_ cat. Disgusting, dirty things. Only he knew the tooth-decayingly cute front was a horrible, horrible _lie_ , yet here he was, babysitting the fucking thing for Sandi. He scooped up a slipper and shied it at THE CAT. THE CAT – yes, he thought of it in all caps -- dodged, mewed all furry and adorable -- and went back to lapping blood. 

...Dis _gus_ ting. 

He edged around it into the living room. A quick check sufficed that no wacko, superhero, or otherwise enterprising persons of interest were waiting in the shadows to take a piece from their hides, so he ducked into the bedroom to shuck his gear, then scrounged a bucket and mop from the kitchen and went to sop up Deadpool’s leakage in the corridor. 

That done, he took a long look at Deadpool. Deadpool was certainly taking his sweet time regenerating, still half-comatose on the tiled floor, though the hole in his forehead was almost whole and almost completely covered with skin. He toed Deadpool in the side, hard. "Yo, Wade. Up and at 'em." 

"Mmmrgaph..." 

He stepped back and considered. Deadpool’s healing factor usually didn’t take this long; he should’ve been completely awake by now. In the mad escape that had involved a wild chase, some fiery crashes, and a lot of gratuitous property damage, Taskmaster hadn't really had time to check the extent of Deadpool's injuries. Was he going to have to duct tape and staple the guy's head together again? 

He rolled him onto his side just enough to see that the gaping exit wound in the back of his head wasn’t as…gaping as before. There was still a lot of bone and brain to be seen, but most of it was covered. Then what? 

Then he realized that Deadpool was still bleeding, but not just from the head. He unrolled him from the coat, swiped at the caked blood on his chest – damned if red and black costumes didn’t make finding bullet holes that much harder -- and saw that at some point Deadpool had been shot so many times in the torso that he resembled Swiss cheese. The holes were closing, then reopening to ooze more. No exit wounds. 

Taskmaster was no expert on first aid for the eternally self-healing and virtually un-killable, but he figured that probably meant the bullets were still rattling around in there somewhere. 

Right. He went looking for tweezers. 

An hour and some disgusting squishing and cracking sounds later -- Taskmaster dragged Deadpool into the bathroom and dumped him into the tub. Deadpool was already coming around, droning tonelessly, "Mmm, baby, you know I love squirrels...your lips taste like hazelnuts -- gimme somma that Nutella lovin' –" 

"You have no idea how disgusting you are," Taskmaster informed him, and turned the shower on full blast. 

Deadpool squawked and thrashed around under the freezing jet but at least most of the blood smeared liberally on the tub now swirled down the drain. Taskmaster pointedly threw a bar of soap at Deadpool, who made no attempt to catch it. It bounced off Deadpool’s chest. 

"Hey," Deadpool said instead, making urgent ‘come here’ gestures. "Hey!" 

Taskmaster sighed. "What?" 

"C’mere! It’s important!" 

Taskmaster gave him a long glare, crossing his arms across his chest, and didn't budge.

"Don’t you want to know really top secret things I found out about SHIELD?" 

"Not really, no." 

"But it’s about Hill. That hottie. Scary, but hottie. Hot because she's scary." 

Taskmaster considered. As little as he wanted to get mixed up in whatever Deadpool was currently up to, this might be something he could use. He leaned in. "What?" 

"Look, WINKIE!" 

"Aw, _fuck_ , Wade--!" 

"HahaHAHAHA, made you look! …Hey, you trip or something? Why’re you on the floor?" 

Taskmaster escaped to the kitchen to fix himself a stiff drink, trailed by Deadpool’s "It wasn’t a winkie, I was just happy to see you!" 

***

Taskmaster sighted along the long barrel and waited, shifting uncomfortably against the low concrete wall. It was unprofessional and risky to be impatient on a mission, but Deadpool should’ve checked in fifteen minutes ago. It was also unprofessional and risky not to stick to the plan. So where the hell was the guy? 

The things he did for people he didn't even like, he grouched to himself. Somehow he’d gone from being sprawled out on his couch, flipping between Jim Lehrer and UFC and doing his best to ignore the gravelly voice belting out Unchained Melody from the bathroom, to winding up the next night on top of a warehouse in the packing district of a city on the other side of the country and helping Deadpool with his mission. Stealing data from HYDRA, who gave a shit about those incompetent sprats? 

Somehow Deadpool had talked him into doing this, just like he talked him into most of the other crazy and inconvenient stuff Taskmaster wound up doing for that stupid asshole. It was a talent Deadpool had. 

Taskmaster tamped down the urge to break radio silence and page him. This was Deadpool, he reminded himself. He had to trust him, _had_ trusted him before. Things worked out, usually. No matter what Taskmaster thought of him otherwise, the thing he hung onto was that Deadpool always got the job done, never mind _how_ he got it done. 

Sticking to the plan was always more wishful thinking when working with that guy, so either Deadpool was in there captured and driving them to messy, bloody murder-suicide, or he was just taking his time getting things done. 

And sometimes that ‘getting things done’ got Taskmaster arrested. 

Taskmaster pushed the thought away. Concentrate on the mission, don’t get distracted, was one of his work rules. But seriously, he needed extra fingers to finish counting all the times he’d gotten nabbed because of one of Deadpool’s harebrained schemes. Deadpool usually broke him out again later as a matter of course, but it was pretty damn inconvenient. And hard on the rep. 

_Stop thinking about it_ , he told himself firmly. 

Alarms screeched into the night for a split second, then -- 

_BOOOM._

The shockwave would've bowled him over if he wasn’t braced against the ledge. As it was, he nearly dropped the sniper rifle and he swore as he grabbed at it before it went over the edge. 

Deadpool's gravelly voice finally crackled over the comm. "BOOOM! HA HA!" 

People began spilling out of the building across from Taskmaster, shouts and gunshots erupting. "HEY! Cover me! Holes in my ass! My beautiful rock-hard ass! OW!" 

"What the hell was that?" he hissed back. Angry flames billowed to the sky, orange bright. They nearly whited out his night-vision goggles, making things just that much harder to see before he tore them off and began picking off the running figures below. The _pft pft pft_ of the silenced gun kicked back into his shoulder. 

This was supposed to be strictly a black bag job, there weren’t supposed to be any explosions! The dark figures dove for cover, and returned fire in his direction. Wildly. "Did you get it?" 

"Get what?" 

He gave Deadpool the only thing that he'd notice: Silence. A few seconds passed. Then: "Yeah, fine, yeah, I got it. Hey." 

If Deadpool didn’t hurry up, Taskmaster was going to have to move house because the greensuits seemed to have pinpointed his location and the ordnance coming his way had abruptly improved in volume and relative accuracy. "Do I want to know?" 

"Do a Vader for me? Please?" Panting noises over the comm now. He could hear tinny shouts and gunfire. 

_"You think this is a good time?"_ He ducked as one lucky shot spanged off the ledge and sprayed him with sharp concrete chips. 

"Come on—" Pant, pant. Curse. "You got the right look with the mask n all and the pissed off ‘tude? Captain America said you’d do it if I asked nicely." 

"He did not – shut -- When I see you again _I'm going to kick the stuffing out of your bony ass._ " 

"Get your foot ready Anakin, cuz I'm coming out front no--" _Pft pft pft_ \-- Wait, that crazily somersaulting figure brandishing blades and guns was -- _pft_ \-- knocked backwards, rolling backwards ass over teakettle until he came to rest, spread-eagled and staring sightlessly up at the smoky night sky. 

"Aw, shit." Taskmaster sat back in disbelief. How was this his life?

Then he threw down the rifle, grabbing for his handguns and his replica web shooters. One man charging down a tall building to rescue a certain lunatic merc who couldn’t follow basic directions and who he'd just shot, with no cover and plenty of pissed off HYDRA agents? 

Check. 

Was he getting paid for this? Check. 

Was he getting paid _enough_? Hell no! 

"The things I do for friends I can’t stand," he muttered. Slinging grenades into the street below, he ducked as the smaller booms rocked the building, then threw himself over the side. Speed and surprise were the only ways this would work, with a tall order of crazy balls. 

Dizzying freefall, before he played out the webbing. He braced himself for the socket-jarring yank of his shoulders -- he might have all the techniques of Spiderman but he certainly didn’t have his flexible superhuman body -- and swung down to the pavement and rolled, pulling out his handguns and hammering the regrouping greensuits with ruthless efficiency. The ones who weren’t already scattered in the initial explosion or shot dead in the previous salvo ran for cover. He used the lull to thumb on his wrist vibro-shield, making his way through the smoke and debris to where Deadpool was lying. 

"Much as I know you want to just lie there and pose for the cameras, we gotta go," he informed him, pulling at him. "Get up!" He dropped him and raised the shield quickly enough that the incoming bullets ricocheted off the shimmering energy disc, crouching to provide a smaller target and to keep Deadpool from being shot up just that much more. He’d already spent way too much time yesterday tweezing bullets out of Deadpool, and he wasn’t going for extra credit. 

Deadpool didn't respond. 

" _Fuck_ ," Taskmaster said with feeling, and sent a steady hail of bullets at the men boiling out of an alleyway. Reinforcements, wonderful. The greensuits screamed and fell down in neat succession, hitting the pavement with wet thuds, but there were plenty where those came from, HYDRA being an equal opportunity employer who subscribed to the school of quantity over quality. 

He began hauling at Deadpool again, Deadpool's ungainly limbs flopping everywhere until he manhandled him over his shoulder into an improvised fireman's carry. Pushing away a distinctly uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu, he staggered off as quickly as he could, using the gunsmoke for cover. 

He got them down a side street several blocks away, shifting Deadpool just enough that he covered Taskmaster’s back like a meat shield. Deadpool mumbled, "Ass. Nice. Heh heh, I like asses," and grabbed it with both hands. 

Taskmaster jumped. He hissed, "Hands off, Wilson, you can't afford me," and kept jogging along as fast as he could go. What was he supposed to do? Stop and let heavily armed henchmen heavily _un_ -arm into their backs, or just endure the indignity of being groped while playing the white knight? He smacked Deadpool’s calf hard at a particularly exploratory squeeze and Deadpool cackled. 

He rounded a corner, pulling out his keys, and skidded to a stop. 

Where the hell was his car? 

***

"This is going on my expense report," Taskmaster muttered. The car had been a burner, but the sheer hassle of replacing it was pissing him off. He should've known better than to park it in the Tenderloin area at night, but he was blaming the entire debacle on Deadpool. Because it was always Deadpool's fault. "I'm also adding fifty dollars a grope." 

"You shot me!" Deadpool let out an indignant huff as he squeezed a flattened bullet out of his forearm. "And grenadoed me!" He dropped it atop a growing pile of bloody shrapnel. "Didn’t your mama teach you that’s rude?" 

"Groping isn’t rude? Hold still." Taskmaster held the lips of the wound apart and wiggled the tweezers inside, grabbed and pulled. The metal fragment came free with a _schlorp_. "Your back’s done. I think." He considered slapping a butterfly bandage on it, then reconsidered. It was already knitting visibly before his eyes and…well, one more scar wouldn’t make a difference on that cratered surface. 

"I figure it’s like an even exchange. For every bullet n grenade piece, one full grope." 

"If you didn’t notice, I was rescuing your sorry ass. Sorry I didn’t have time for finesse, your highness." 

He sat back against the wall and watched Deadpool put his shirt back on. It was a miracle they'd even made it here in one piece and hopefully unnoticed; San Francisco didn't have enough supes or weirdoes to make a couple of blood-covered mercs bristling with guns anywhere near as anonymous as they would have been in the Big Apple. 

But Deadpool kept talking, as if he hadn’t even heard. "So, considering sometimes I didn’t even get a full grope in before you dropped me on my head, that makes you owe me…" he counted on his fingers, "TWENTY more!" 

"How’d you get to twenty on your fingers?" Taskmaster was asking, when they heard footsteps coming down the hall towards their door. 

They tensed. Taskmaster laid one hand on the butterfly knife in his boot—when it came to stealth, nothing was faster and quieter than a quick knife to the base of the skull—while Deadpool slowly drew out one katana, waiting for a heavy footfall to disguise the slide of metal. 

Taskmaster laid a cautionary hand on Deadpool’s wrist. A dead body here, their last ditch (and only) safe house, would cause a commotion and get them kicked out at best, caught by HYDRA at worst, so offing the person was an absolute last resort option. 

At least Deadpool hadn't drawn his gun. He'd picked up stealth somewhere along the line, because that was new. Sorta nice, too; when he'd first met Deadpool ages ago the dude hadn't thought twice about blowing a hole through the wall instead of using the door.

They breathed easier as the footsteps stumbled past the door on down the hallway, and Taskmaster took his hand off the knife and straightened again. 

"The data okay?" he asked. Once they got out of the city, they'd deliver the data, he'd get paid, and he could get back to his regularly scheduled programming.

But getting out of the city was going to be complicated as HYDRA had blanketed most of downtown in a manhunt. Seemed the data was pretty damn important. Usually Taskmaster liked to know what it was he was stealing and for whom, but he was beginning to suspect that Deadpool had handled him quite expertly and he'd wound up in California thinking that he knew, but second thought proved that he knew absolutely jack fucking shit. There hadn’t been time to query Deadpool about it, either.

Deadpool patted one of his pouches and gave him a thumbs-up. "Little piggly wiggly’s safe with the big bad farmer!" he said. 

Great oogly moogly. "Another entire night spent in your company, Wade," Taskmaster replied with a sigh. At least until he got the hell out of Frisco. Deadpool might have lived here, seemed to like it here, but Taskmaster hated San Francisco with a passion. It was foggy and cold all the time, and it was full of dirty crackheads who stole a person’s _car_. 

They had succeeded in stealing a cab after losing the car, managing to scare the living bejeesus out of the middle-aged paunchy Latverian taxi driver, and they’d found their way over to Weasel’s Top Secret Hideout. It was a grandiose title for what amounted to a shack, but Deadpool insisted on pronouncing the name in all capital letters. Weasel wasn’t there, but they’d broken in anyway to lay low until things blew over and they could get out of the city, and to wait for Deadpool’s foot to grow back where it’d been blown off by Weasel’s homicidal security system. 

Taskmaster always made it a point to complete his mission without any loose ends, no matter how insane his partner or the city was, so he was going with the flow. 

At least for the moment.

Several hours later, "To the end of a long weekend," Deadpool said with a grin, tilting his beer can at him. Taskmaster didn’t make it a habit to drink and especially not on the job, but he’d found that Deadpool had amazing powers of persuasion that mostly involved asking "Why not?" over and over - and so he’d drunk enough beers and shots of tequila that his lips were pruny with salt and lime and he was sloshing inside. Plus, the guy was supplying them, albeit pilfered out of Weasel’s Top Secret Stash, and Taskmaster was never one to say no to freebies. 

Too bad he couldn’t copycat Deadpool’s ability to stay completely sober. He’d learned many things spending a delinquent adolescence in the South Bronx and holding his drink had turned out to be the most valuable, yet now it was proving so very inadequate. At least it had saved him from belting out showtunes like Deadpool wanted, and the Vader voice like Deadpool wanted, and the magic tricks, and the mime show like Deadpool wanted. 

But as it was, he'd taken off his mask somewhere in between Deadpool plunking down an entire bottle of José and a dish of limes and Deadpool deciding that Taskmaster’s cape was an affront to fashionistas and pirates everywhere and trying to set it on fire. _Says the guy who looks like a burned raccoon_ , Taskmaster had protested, but that hadn’t saved the SHIELD-engineered fabric from getting scorched. 

Both their masks were now sitting next to the empty bottle in a crumpled pile amid a heap of squeezed out limes, and Taskmaster had pushed up his black cowl for easy access drinking. 

Deadpool was matching him drink for drink, sitting next to him on the dusty floor because Weasel might have schnazzy doohickeys and state-of-the-art gadgets galore and what looked like ten separate computers and monitors, but he certainly hadn’t invested in any actual furniture beyond the one supremely plush and ergonomic computer chair and his cot. Deadpool was constantly bumping against Taskmaster in his frenetic inability to sit still, but it looked like the cheap healing factor was overcompensating yet again and he didn’t seem even remotely buzzed. 

But then, with the zany talk and constantly changing expressions and expressively rolling eyes, it was hard to tell when Deadpool was sober. 

Except when he was. 

That doesn’t make any sense, Taskmaster told himself. 

"And then, I met Shen Kuei and like, he was so totally awesome—" 

"The Cat? You’re shittin’ me." 

"No! No, I really did! He was all deadly and and he’s got blue eyes, how awesome is that for a Chinese dude? that’s like _Mad Max_ level awesome! For a Chinese dude!" 

"Did he show you his tattoo?" 

"Hell yeah!" 

Taskmaster tried hard not to sound jealous as he said, "Damn," but Deadpool thumped him on the back, radiating pity, and handed him another lukewarm beer. 

"Woulda had him sign my chest too, but I didn’t have a chance with the ripping out my trachea thing and the impaling thing." Deadpool sighed happily. 

Then a hesitation, in which Taskmaster could hear the gears in his head churning, then Deadpool fumbled with the tab he'd just pulled off his beer can. It clattered on the ground. 

"By the way, thanks for helping me out today, Tony. And yesterday. It was really nice of you, man." 

Taskmaster was startled by the sudden shift in tone. "It’s cool," he said, uncomfortably. 

"No, really. I appreciate it." Deadpool gave him an awkward smile and bumped him with his shoulder. "Not everyone woulda stopped and picked me up." 

_Almost didn’t_ , Taskmaster thought but didn’t say. Deadpool could get away with having no filter between brain and word-vomit, but Taskmaster didn’t have the healing factor to make up for it.

"I mean, you always help me out when I ask. So…thanks." 

"Not for free," Taskmaster reminded him. 

"Well—no, but we’re like buds now, right? We don’t hang out much, and sometimes you look at me like you want to shoot my kneecaps off and beat me with my own legs, but—" 

"Mercs don’t have friends, Wade," he told him, almost gently. At best, other mercenaries were competition, at worst they were liabilities. Taskmaster generally found it useful to keep a few on friendly terms in case he needed backup for a particularly hairy mission, if the payoff was sufficiently large enough to be shared, but no more than that. 

Deadpool digested this. 

"Damn, that’s really lonely, Tasky. Total downer," he said finally. 

"If you think I’m your friend, you seriously need to stop calling me ‘Tasky’." 

"Can I call you Cherise?" 

"No." 

"Prisci—" 

" _No._ " 

Silence fell again. Deadpool shifted and his arm touched Taskmaster’s. Taskmaster pulled at his beer, and wondered how he could have thought he was full to bursting. He felt floaty. He felt great. Well, okay, he thought. Maybe he was also just a little buzzed. The beer helped with the sickly sour-sweet aftertaste of the tequila. 

"Hey, you’re buds with the Avengers, right?" 

"Huh. I wouldn’t call it that." 

"Friends with benefits?" 

"What?" Taskmaster choked on his beer. "Yeah, I guess, if by ‘benefits’ you mean ‘arresting’ and oh, 'slapping with tax penalties'." He shook his head and did a full body shudder. "That’s helluva question. What’re you getting at?" 

Deadpool shrugged, scratching his scalp. "Well, you know this data I stole?" At Taskmaster’s cautious nod, "Seriously, I think it was harder to break into the Baxter Building, but that one time, with the thing with Fury, and that other thing—You know they have engineered monsters in there? Like there was one with a green face that looked like a lion, kinda like She-Hulk during that time of the month, except you should never say that to her face when she's holding tongs—" 

"Dude. Point?" 

"What? Oh yeah. Yeah. So you know mutants, right?" 

The crack of his fist against Deadpool’s cheekbone would be just so gratifying, he thought. He tried to decide if the ensuing mayhem and possible discovery would be worth punching him in the face just to see what would happen. Instead Taskmaster said in flat, dangerous tone, "Yes. I know mutants. So?" 

Deadpool unclipped a belt pouch and pulled out a data stick. They looked at it in the thin yellow streetlight that edged through the crooked blinds. Deadpool sounded satisfied. "Not anymore." 

It took Taskmaster a few moments to process, then: "What, seriously?" 

"You’re darn-tootin’! Seriouser than Ant-Man’s ant-sized underoos." 

"So that will —" 

"If the bad guys have this, kiss all the mutants goodbye. Again. For serious this time, _everybody_ , including all the popular X-Men that Quesada likes." 

"Huh." That was…that was. Then something occurred to him. "Wait. Who would even pay you to -- Whose side are you -- Just who hired you for this job, anyway?"

Ah, damn. Taskmaster knew Deadpool better than he'd ever really wanted, and he knew that Deadpool couldn't lie for shit. And Deadpool was looking cagey as hell. 

He thumped his head against the wall. "Nobody. You're doing this for nobody."

Deadpool's voice was small. "Well. Not _nobody_. It'd save a lot of people. Do a lot of good." 

"But not for money. You mean that story you fed me about being hired to steal the thing for some guy—for lots of money—" 

Deadpool abruptly switched _on_ , grinning at him suddenly, all crazy eyes and gleaming teeth, and leaning in way, way too close. "Lies, all horrible, horrible lies that’ve blackened my poor, tender soul, Tony." 

Taskmaster glared at him. All the way out here to goddamn California, sacrificing his weekend. Pro bono. And stuck in a rat-hole in a city he hated because Deadpool was trying to make nice with the X-Men, those arrogant douchebags. 

"You know I hate being lied to about my mission, you carpet-whacker," he snapped, struggling against the very real urge to throttle Deadpool. Not having all the pieces to the puzzle usually meant total mission failure and complete humiliation. He still hadn’t lived the Moon Knight thing down, and Deadpool knew it. 

And, well. If he felt a pang on Deadpool's behalf that Deadpool was still trying to get sanctimonious assholes like the X-Men to accept him (and they never would, it didn't take a genius to see that, but Taskmaster knew from long experience that Deadpool was a closet optimist), Deadpool didn't need to know. 

Deadpool settled back, the manic energy gone as if he'd flipped a switch. He turned the data stick over in his hands. "You wouldn’t have come," he said somberly. 

"Fuck you. Seriously." 

Deadpool peered at him. Then he grinned, and elbowed him hard. "You big softie! You so woulda come!" 

Taskmaster considered punching him for the twenty-seventh time that evening, then, "If Sandi asked me nicely." 

"With boob-access?" 

He considered. Hard. "Probably not." It was probably not a good sign that he could follow Deadpool's logic now.

"Man," Deadpool said, draping his arm companionably over Taskmaster’s shoulders, "It’s like you got all the boyfriend duties with none of the fun." 

He snorted. "That’s crossed my mind." 

"It's okay. As a bonus for being such a good buddy you can have access to _my_ boobs anytime." Deadpool’s very no-sense-of-personal-space hand patted Taskmaster’s shoulder. "But each grope doesn’t count against any of the gropes you still owe _me_." 

Taskmaster crossed his arms. "If you’re implying that I would’ve come—for free, might I add—if you asked me nicely with boob access, doesn’t that mean right now I should get any and all gropes unlimited and for free?" He caught himself. "Wait. Never mind. I am not talking about groping and man-boobs with you. And sadly, this is by far not the most surreal conversation we’ve ever had." 

"But ass-gropes and boob-gropes aren’t the same thing," Deadpool protested. 

"I’m not talking to you about groping anything! Were you like this with that Cable guy?" 

Deadpool leaned in closer and leered. "Only with you, baby," he breathed, attempting a sultry voice that just made him sound constipated. And then he added, "Heh heh, you said ‘cable guy’." 

"You damn melon farmer!" He attempted to slap Deadpool upside the head, but Deadpool dodged him all too easily, Taskmaster’s reflexes dulled by too much José Cuervo and not enough sleep. 

"Hey, that’s my word! Only I use that word!" 

Taskmaster said, fending off the elbows and ninja hand-jabs, "What, you think you’ve got some sort of copyright on it? Like 'melon farmer' is such a great word only you thought it up? And it's not even a word, it's a _term_!" then suddenly Deadpool was leaning way into his personal space. 

Well okay, Deadpool was the only person he knew who used the fucking term so he supposed Deadpool had been rubbing off on him, and damn, Taskmaster could read people and he'd never been able to read Deadpool, but he didn’t need to, to know exactly what Deadpool had in mind. 

It was way too clear with a hand creeping up his thigh and a suddenly serious, hopeful look on Deadpool’s face. 

Taskmaster almost slapped it away, exasperated with damn Deadpool and his constant _touching_ , but didn't. Because he could see Deadpool watching him, an almost imperceptible flinch in the works, to be covered immediately with flailing and another flippant joke. It was easily overlooked, but Taskmaster was trained to see and record every movement a person made. 

Fucking hell. He wasn’t stupid, though maybe he was getting soft, but he could understand. Deadpool had always been a flirt, but not a serious one. Half a lifetime looking like spoiled hamburger would make anyone leery of just trying something on someone. 

Maybe all that tequila and beer was catching up to him so he didn't point out that this really wasn't the time or the place, and that he also made it a rule not to sleep around on the job, plus Weasel's dusty and spider-ridden apartment really wasn't making with the sexy times, but instead allowed Deadpool's fingers to skim along the lines of his jaw, then up his cheeks and a feather-light tracing along the ridges of fabric where his cowl was rucked up just below his cheekbones and nose.

Deadpool sucked in a breath and looked up at him with a strangely vulnerable expression, like he still couldn’t believe Taskmaster was really allowing this to happen. He hadn’t really considered Deadpool as anything more than a begrudgingly respected colleague (okay, kinda maybe sorta a friend, albeit a very annoying one) before, but now, under that look of need and uncertainty he had to fight an unexpected flare of irritation at Cable. 

He'd known Deadpool for a long time. And in a small world with only so many competent mercs, they'd run into each other a lot over the years. He'd gotten to realize that Deadpool had weird ideas for a mercenary; romantic, impractical ideas about redemption and honor. That Deadpool was always looking for someone to kill him, or give him something to live for. 

Taskmaster wasn’t looking to fill either role. Apparently the Jesus-wannabe had. 

Deadpool had changed since Providence. Still the zany, fast-talking humor, but not so angry; less of the homicidal tendencies that lashed out unpredictably at everyone, friend or foe. More of this uncertainty about his place in the world.

Not that Taskmaster had given it much thought.

"Well?" he asked, challengingly. "You gonna do something or just stare?"

He could pinpoint the exact moment—0.57 seconds— when Deadpool got over his shock at his offer being accepted and just dove in, that crazy _Deadpool_ way that always drove Taskmaster batshit, where he flung himself wholesale into crazy situations, committing himself body and soul without a thought for the consequences. 

Which was great, that maniac intensity focused on him like a laser, but Deadpool was kinda awful at this, all sloppy wet tongue and fumbling lips. The guy was probably way out of practice, Taskmaster thought dimly, the focused heat of it warring with the sensation that he was losing a particularly messy battle with a wet octopus.

It was distinctly weird not to have anything to grab onto as his hands curved around Deadpool’s skull, the skin weirdly smooth, all knotted and whorled scar tissue. He had to make do with the ears instead to hold Deadpool's enthusiastically plunging face still. But instead of pulling away or protesting, Deadpool did an even weirder thing and just stopped and... _nuzzled_ , socketing his nose into Taskmaster's half-concealed cheek and sighing. But his hands kept up their interested explorations, sliding down Taskmaster's arms to--

"Hey," Taskmaster snapped, twisting, and muffled Deadpool’s reply, "But I like manly rock-hard pecs and you owe me gropes," by sticking his fingers in Deadpool's mouth, then jerking them out just as Deadpool attempted to take Taskmaster's fingers off at the knuckles with his teeth. But the attempt was half-hearted. Deadpool shifted his hips upward into Taskmaster’s touch as Taskmaster moved downwards, grazing his palms along the planes of Deadpool's body, gripping him through the thick material of his pants.

Deadpool made a soft sound then, low and desperate and unexpectedly hot. It did something to Taskmaster, ignited something that smoldered then flared, and suddenly Taskmaster couldn't get enough of those noises, of the reverent awe in Deadpool's eyes as if he'd won a lottery with impossible odds. 

Deadpool melted into him, writhed in his grasp, his mouth opening under Taskmaster's. They breathed harsh gasps into each other's mouths. Holy shit, this was kinda…good. Not mind-blowing unless he was feeling very charitable, but _good_. Not terrible. He continued with increased enthusiasm, until –

"Oh. _Oh._ "

Oh? Deadpool was shuddering, making soft, hurt sounds, his fingers clenching into Taskmaster's forearms, like – like – Taskmaster jerked back. Their lips parted with a loud wet sucking noise. He looked down. "Did you just—"

Gasping for breath, Deadpool finally relaxed. He opened his eyes, and looked down at himself. "Uh. Oh. _Oh._ I usually – um, in my defense, it's been a really long time—" 

Taskmaster was about to reply that he didn't care if Deadpool was the thirty-second wonder as long as the other half of the equation was completed too, but then there came a loud thump at the door, and then the rattling of the doorknob.

They wrenched away from each other, going for their guns, and brought them to bear just as the door opened and Weasel stepped in, arms full of mail and pizza pamphlets. 

"Wade, is that your foot out there in the hall--" he broke off, staring at the four guns aimed at him. Then his cheeks flamed as he took in their disheveled state, kiss-swollen lips, discarded masks, Taskmaster's shirt rucked interestingly up his ribs, and the even more interesting fact that Deadpool was practically lying in Taskmaster's lap, albeit leaned out far enough to have reached his guns, in one wild, sweeping look. 

It was pretty damn evident that they'd been up to something, and that something was definitely not Scrabble.

"Gah," Weasel squeaked, his mouth ajar. "I--I'll just--oh god--" he staggered against the door, then groping at the doorknob, wrenched the door open and fled.

Deadpool slowly lowered his guns. "Cockblocked by my own wingman," he said mournfully. He really did sound disappointed.

"You cockblocked yourself," Taskmaster snapped, the whiplash of being in the middle of sex and then…not, making him crabby. He shoved at Deadpool. " _Off_."


	2. Chapter 2

"Right," Weasel said, fiddling with some doohickey on his computer and frowning at the screen as if the secrets of the universe were told there, and the answer wasn't forty-two. "Um." He was obviously uneasy, fingers clattering over the keyboard, but he pretty much always was when Taskmaster was around because Taskmaster made damn sure of it. In part, it was useful to have a genius-level hacker like Weasel going in mortal terror of him, and in part because Taskmaster just plain didn't like him. Weasel wasn't big on bathing and got an uncontrollable twitch when he was upset, like now. He also didn't blink much, which was unnerving. 

People like Weasel made people like Taskmaster want to corner him and flush his head in the toilet a couple times just to hear his gurgly screams.

Weasel's jittery gaze slid to Deadpool's contented slouch against the wall, disbelievingly to Taskmaster, then jerked away again. 

It also probably had a lot to do with the thick, spicy smell of sex hanging in the room. 

Taskmaster stayed impassive, exuding _Got somethin' to say?_ with every line of his body. Weasel coughed, then looked sorry he'd inhaled. "Well," he began after a pause. "We've got a problem here."

Deadpool sat up. "The condom broke?" 

Weasel's horrified face could've been made into a macro subtitled _Do Not Want_. It occurred to Taskmaster that maybe the nervousness had more to do with Deadpool than him, and somehow that made a lot of sense. "Nooo," Weasel said, recovering. "No. No. Oh god, no. Just, this isn't the right data. Or actually, it _is_ , but this isn't all of it. It's useless if it isn't complete, and I can't break the code without--"

"The hell you mean! _Then hack it, you chicken choker!_ " Deadpool stood. His mug of tea and heaps of limes went flying. 

Weasel twitched a bit, shooting another ferret glance at Taskmaster that clearly said, _You might be the saner of two evils after all_ and snapped back, "Well, yeah, of course I'd hack it if it were that easy, give me some credit here. But there're whole chunks of data missing, and--" 

"You fail me yet again, Starscream!" 

"Well, if _somebody_ listened to what I was trying to tell you before you ran off half-cocked here to San Francisco, you would've heard me say all this!" 

Deadpool waggled a finger at him. "Weaz, how many times do I have to tell you? You need to tell me things in less than five words with less than two syllables." 

"But I _tried to, but you ran off before I even got to the third word--_ " 

"See? Not listening anymore!" 

Taskmaster pinched the bridge of his nose, the tequila buzz beginning to give way to the throb of a tension headache edging around the base of his skull. "So, what now?" he broke in, before Deadpool and Weasel's face-to-mashed-face bickering could degenerate further into fisticuffs or even shooting.

"You have to go get the rest of the data," Weasel said, a 'DUH, it's so obvious' blatant in his tone. 

"Well, that's helpful. _Where?_ " 

Weasel quailed at his tone and pecked at his keyboard again. "Er. Afghanistan. The HYDRA base in Afghanistan." 

Deadpool said, "Hey, isn't that where I picked up Bob?" 

"If by 'picked up' you mean 'kidnapped and terrorized'," Weasel replied sourly. 

"Ya can't believe a word he says, Weaz. Especially anything to do with Robitussin and popsicles." 

"He did mention something about hamsters--"

"Who the hell is Bob?" Taskmaster demanded. 

" _Bob_. Agent of HYDRA," Deadpool told him, and damned if it wasn't the exact same 'DUH, it's so obvious' tone, and if Weasel had tried it again, he would've found out exactly how massive trauma and purple nurples went together like peanut butter and jelly. "You'd like him. Mad hiding skills, awesome fashion sense, makes the cutest squeaking noises when you shoot at his feet." 

"I bet," Taskmaster said dryly. "Can we get back to the problem at hand?"

Deadpool slung that companionable arm around his shoulders again and slapped his hand against Taskmaster's chest. Weasel's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "Problems, Tasky? Doesn't do to leave them bottled up inside." 

"Yeah, just a bit." He didn't pull away. In that non-action he felt Deadpool relax against him just slightly, something unnoticeable until it actually happened. He pointed at Weasel, who looked at Taskmaster's finger like it was a new species of food mold that had just crawled out of his refrigerator and said, _Mind if I borrow your cable for a bit, mate?_ "I want a full work-up of the who, what, when, where and how. In other words, I want a plan. I want to do this like professionals. Because," he said, turning his head just enough that Deadpool's once again masked face swam in his peripheral vision, "I'm not hauling your shot-up ass out of any more firefights." 

"Last time was all your fault," Deadpool reminded him cheerfully. "And 'get there and improvise' always works for me."

Taskmaster snorted. "Yeah, no. I'm not going anywhere until we have a plan."

"So...how 'bout this. I'll go in there, and, um..." 

"You're not thinking of running in and yelling, 'Chimichanga!'" again, are you?" 

"Hey, it worked that time in Mexico!"

"Problem is, they still have that morphogenic actuator there," Weasel put in.

Taskmaster didn't miss a beat. "And you'll get zapped by the actuator. You want to spend your days jonesing for monkey chow? Do you? Shut up, no you don't. No, you don't. No—Shut—goddamnit, Wade, haven't you ever heard of a rhetorical question?" 

Weasel looked around at them. "I'm surrounded by masked freaks. How did my life go so seriously wrong? When did I start only knowing people in masks with more issues than National Geographic?" 

"Do you like fish sticks?" Deadpool asked him seriously.

"What? Yeah?" 

"Then you must be a gay fish!" 

"Will you shut up!" Taskmaster snapped.

"Sure, anything’s worth a try."

Okay. The buzz was totally gone. Taskmaster was about two seconds from just getting the fuck out of there and away from terrible Southpark jokes, but then he thought of something. "This Bob guy, he still working for HYDRA?"

***

Bob was terrified. Bob didn't have many people in his stable of friends--for which he partially blamed his wife--but even he was starting to suspect that a friendship that involved a lot of terror for his life and limbs and sometimes pain wasn't exactly what normal people would label 'healthy'. But Mr. Wilson, no matter his faults, could never be accused of being _boring_. Mr. Wilson had a knack for agitating out Bob's semi-occasional urges for derring-do and convincing him thoroughly that an anonymous life in an anonymous green mask was just the thing for him, thank you very much. 

But sometimes Mr. Wilson introduced him to adventures even when he had no urge whatsoever to distinguish himself, and introduced him to rather frightening characters he'd always heard of with some awe but had absolutely no desire of ever meeting. Well, except this one particular person he _did_ know, and had absolutely no desire of ever meeting again.

"There's something familiar about you," Taskmaster said, and though Bob supposed his tone couldn't be called menacing, Taskmaster just exuded menacing at all times, with the belligerent stance, the skull mask, the bulging biceps. A guy had to be menacing to pull off the undies-over-leotards and white-pirate-boots-and-hoodie-cape look he had going. 

Bob gripped the edge of his coffee table and wondered if he'd be noticed if he dove under it. "Er...no?" he faltered, immensely grateful that he'd kept his mask on, even at home.

"Bob! Bob, Bob, Bob." Deadpool slung a companionable arm around his shoulder and shook him until his teeth rattled in his head. "Lookin' good, Bob. You been working out?"

"Ah – no. M-my wife, she's been mad at me again. Won't feed me any carbs. Does help the waistline, though."

Taskmaster snapped his fingers suddenly. "I do know you! Camp Winnahatchee, ten years or so ago. Had to sell your contract at a bulk rate, you were so useless." He kicked the couch. "Christ, you're like a ninja with that. Get out from under there, boy. Damn, you were good at hiding. I definitely remember you. Hadda look for you up every tree and under every rock every time we had a training exercise."

Bob tried to become one with the carpet. 

"Isn't he cute?" Deadpool exclaimed. "Like a green hamster."

"We're wasting our time here, Wade." Taskmaster kicked the couch again, harder. 

Bob cringed and shrieked, "Hail HYDRA!" 

"Sorry, he does that when he's nervous or constipated." 

Taskmaster gave Deadpool the hairy eyeball. "No," he said flatly. "Just, no. This, here? I'm done. I'm leaving." 

"What? Come on! You said you wanted a plan!" 

"I didn't say I wanted a _stupid_ plan."

"Bob's cool, right Bob? Bob, tell the man you're cool. So cool, in fact, that you can do this one-handed and sleep-walking."

"At this point, it'll _be_ like being one-handed and sleep-wa—"

***

The plan sucked.

Taskmaster punched Deadpool hard on the arm. "This is the worst plan ever," he hissed. Deadpool turned and gave him a thumbs up and a grin. "But it worked, right?"

"No. No, it didn’t. In what world does _this_ look like it worked?" He gestured at the compound in the distance, which was still peaceful in the early hours of the morning, mostly dark except for the sentry tower floodlights that hadn’t moved in twenty minutes and counting, because, Taskmaster was willing to bet, someone had fallen asleep at the switch. 

_If_ Bob had done his job, ten minutes ago a small green light would've shone out for three seconds in morse code, indicating that all was clear for Taskmaster and Deadpool to slip in undetected. Simple enough task, unlocking a door that led to an unmonitored maintenance tunnel that in turn led into the central compound. But a plan was only as strong as its weakest link, and – Taskmaster scratched at himself. Goddamnit, he had sand in awkward places and he goddamn hated being out in the fucking desert on the other side of the fucking world doing fucking favors for fucking friends for fucking free. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck, why did _everything_ go oblong when Deadpool was involved? 

He stopped mid-mental rant when Deadpool leaned onto his shoulder and whispered, "Yeah, we could totally fucking fuck here," like a creepster telepath. "Best three minutes of your life." 

Taskmaster sighed and dropped his head to his arms, valiantly trying – and failing – to ignore him. "Guess Bob's hiding in the rafters again." He rolled his face against his forearms for a moment, scratching it through the mask as he thought. He was tired now, his anger drained away. This was what he got for listening to Deadpool and depending on his 'friends.' Where did Deadpool even find these people, seriously? 

Okay, to be fair, maybe Bob was onto something with the possum act. The guy wasn't much for bravery, but he'd outlived the lifespan of the average HYDRA minion by about twenty years.

Though for not much longer, if Taskmaster got ahold of him.

"No, really," Deadpool said, leaning once more a little too far into Taskmaster's personal space, with that pathetic hope in his voice again that made Taskmaster want to pat him and make things all better, a not-unfamiliar urge that pissed him off all over again. Dammit, was he a world-infamous mercenary or what, respected by his colleagues and superheroes alike? Why did Deadpool and his random flashes of vulnerability _do_ this to him?

And he was _not_ talking about their non-relationship or whatever right now, in the middle of a mission. Deadpool and his newfound sense of nobility was maybe having an effect on him, but he wasn't that far gone. He was here to do a job. He'd complete it as professionally as he knew how, then get the hell back to Manhattan and try to forget Deadpool ever happened. The end.

"What do you think you're doing?" he hissed, shifting away pointedly until Deadpool and his entirely too invasive shoulder was a good foot away. 

"Nothing," Deadpool said after a pause. Taskmaster tried to ignore the hurt in his voice. Then that switch back to crazy again, like a lightbulb plugged into a socket over its wattage flaring white hot before blowing out. "But you ever want to try sex under the stars sometime, in the desert sand? Romantic as shit. Almost tried it once at Burning Man – Weaz went and I went along to protect his virginity, you never know what those crazies on drugs will do – then for some reason that straw guy caught fire. I had nothing to do with it, I swear, but –"

"Wade," Taskmaster said, hanging onto his patience by the skin of his teeth. "That time at Weasel's? That was a one-time thing. It's not going to happen again." 

He should soften the blow, he supposed, but he wouldn't do it, couldn’t do it. It just wasn't him. It was probably the reason most of his girlfriends dumped him; he was _emotionally unavailable_ , they said. Which was probably true, because there was no room for softness or vulnerability in his line of work. And Deadpool should’ve known that too, but that was Deadpool for you; for all that bullshit and snark and craziness, he wore his heart on his sleeve, in prime territory to get it stabbed. 

This was why Taskmaster didn’t sleep with colleagues. Because Deadpool was making this messy, by wanting more.

"Oh." A long silence then, too long for someone like Deadpool, long enough to make Taskmaster sneak a look over at him. "Yeah, okay."

"Okay?"

Deadpool shrugged, and to Taskmaster's great relief, answered, "Yeah." 

"Great."

"Good."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"Look," Taskmaster said wearily. "You don't even know what I look like." 

"I kinda do? I mean, I've seen like, the bottom half of your face in person and when I broke into SHIELD's database that one time I saw the rest of it in your file –"

"You did what?" He knew SHIELD had a file on him (they had a file on everyone) so this wasn't news, but how did Deadpool do crazy shit like that and just talk about it all casual as if it were as simple as walking down the street to buy donuts? Based on Starktech and Shi'ar technology, the SHIELD database was one of the most encrypted on the planet and supposedly impossible to hack. Taskmaster had done it once or twice just to cheese Tony Stark and Director Hill off, but Deadpool? Something as covert and under the radar as hacking just wasn't his style.

Weasel. It was probably Weasel who'd gotten him in.

"—and you're kinda cute, in that generic brunette white guy sort of way—" 

Inexplicably, this stung. "Wait, what do you mean, 'kinda'?"

"—and I know I'm not much to look at but before this cancer stuff I wasn't ugly, at least I think, but the fangirls seem to like me so I—" 

Taskmaster cleared his throat loudly. "Right," he coughed, hoping to head Deadpool off at the pass. He didn’t want to finish this conversation. In fact, he wanted to backspace the last five minutes of his life. "So, this base."

Deadpool seemed to shake himself out of his reverie then, then flashed a grin. If it wasn't nearly as exuberant as usual, Taskmaster carefully didn't notice. "No worries, Tasky, I've got a plan."

"We already have a plan."

"This is better."

"What the hell are you—"

"Wait for it," Deadpool whispered, shuffling closer again on his elbows to whisper in his ear. "Wait for it..."

"Wait for what?" Taskmaster demanded, and then the night lit up with an orange ball of fire that illuminated the sky like daylight. The shockwave hit them a second later in a concussive blow like a giant fist, even as Deadpool leaped up and thrust his fists into the air, whooping and doing a little dance, hip thrusts and everything. "FI-YAH! FUCK YEAH, EXPLOSIONS! BOOM!" 

"Would it have been that hard to do something subtle?" Taskmaster asked tiredly, knowing the answer already but unable to help himself. It was like picking at a scab. "Like the plan we all agreed on?"

Deadpool sat back down again and patted Taskmaster on the head, waggling a little doohickey that looked like a garage door opener in his face.

"I love ya, Tony, but what you're missing is pizzazz," Deadpool replied cheerfully. "That and management skills, baby. Bobby McBob over there, sometimes he needs gentle encouragement and love to do the right thing, so I rigged him with a nanite thinger that Weaz made that shocks him everytime I push _this_ button, aw yeah, pushing this button is fun, wanna try? and yeah, pizzazz, so I told him our backup plan in case the first plan didn't work out, soooo," climbing to his feet and stretching out his spine, "you gonna come with me to kick ass and take names, or you gonna just lay there and complain?" 

"Fuck you, the backup plan was to try it a different day after he reported back," Taskmaster protested. "And you couldn't have zapped him to make him follow the original plan?"

"Boring!" Deadpool yelled, even as he charged down the hillock toward the burning base.

So Deadpool probably didn't see the quinjet that soared overhead to land in the compound, a quinjet that Taskmaster had had way too many rides to prison in to not recognize. 

The _Avengers._

What the hell were they even doing here?

Fuck.

_Fuck._

"Deadpool!" Taskmaster shouted, rolling to his feet and taking off after him.

***

Deadpool wouldn't go.

He caught Deadpool just as Deadpool was yanking on the outside door to the maintenance tunnel backlit by merrily burning cargo trucks. "We need to get out of here, _now_ ," he hissed, catching at Deadpool's arm. "Also, isn't that locked? What kind of backup plan involves the _original plan except with explosions_?" 

"Good plans, because explosions make everything better," Deadpool replied cheerfully, before pulling out a gun – a ridiculously giant thing, it must've been Cable's back in the day, and Taskmaster had to wonder again if Cable wasn't overcompensating for something – and he had all of two seconds to take cover before Deadpool blasted away at the lock, futuristic plasma energy ricocheting everywhere. The poor door, made of non-futuristic wood and metal, never stood a chance.

"Well, gee," Taskmaster snapped. "Isn't it nice that the Avengers are attacking so we don't have to sneak in?" But Deadpool was already gone through the shattered door into the tunnel, and Taskmaster was talking to empty air.

Okay, Taskmaster had to admit as he followed, bitching aside, as on-the-fly plans went, it worked. As Deadpool's plans usually did, annoyingly enough to someone like Taskmaster who liked to plan for weeks, sometimes even months beforehand and had every little detail and scenario mapped out and planned for. Sure, the door they'd gone for was locked. Sure Bob was nowhere to be seen. Sure the Avengers, who’d had a hate-boner for an honest businessman like Taskmaster since the beginning of time, were here in the worst kind of bad timing and even worse luck and who would surely try to arrest him again if they saw him. Sure Deadpool was gaily skipping ahead, singing Cyndi Lauper at the top of his gravelly voice, taking swings with a katana (hel- _lo_ , the 90's called and want their Japanophilia back, Taskmaster groused to himself as he trailed behind and dispatched the ones Deadpool missed) at green-suited goons who were rushing about, some like frantic chickens, others like frantic chickens with fire extinguishers, all running in different directions. 

"OOooOoohhhh, girls just wanna have fu-un~ Yeaaaaaah, girls just wanna--"

Ah. A hundred yards into the main hallway of the inner complex, Taskmaster found a security console and set to work hacking it, wondering at Deadpool's ability to sing a falsetto above the bray of the siren. 

"Hey, Bobbo! C'mere! Bob, Bob, Bobby!" Taskmaster popped his head up from his task long enough to glimpse Deadpool take off down the corridor and snag one of the green-suits by the arm. Greensuit squawked in panic, flailing as he was dragged back to where Taskmaster stood.

"How do you even know that's—"

"HAIL HYDRA!"

"—never mind."

Deadpool gave Bob an affectionate noogie. "Where've you been, you bad boy?"

Bob sniffled, slump-shouldered in defeat. "Hiding. Also I peed myself when you shocked me, so I had to go change." He gave Deadpool a withering look that had the same effect as a wet kitten glare and added, "Good thing I have excellent medical benefits for the seizure you gave me. _Not_." 

He caught sight of Taskmaster glowering at him then. Gangly limbs went flailing as he shrieked and tried to hide behind Deadpool, then slipped in a puddle of urine that had appeared on the floor between his feet. He landed on his back with a sodden thud that shook the hallway.

He was really too pathetic to punch, Taskmaster thought with an internal sigh. 

At any rate, Bob's total incompetence didn't matter anymore; as Deadpool poked Bob with the tip of one of his katana sheaths, Taskmaster found the schematic for the base under a subfolder titled _Group Files > MAPS_. Excellent, it came with a search function. 

"The data's being kept in the R&D wing, room J23." He looked up and pointed a finger at Bob, who quailed on the floor and repeated the slip-n-slide-flail. The man was his own slapstick clown act at _Cirque du Pathetic_. "You're going to take us there."

"But I was just transferred here and I don't –" 

"Excuse me?" Taskmaster asked, in a tone of mild interest.

"W-what?"

"I'm sorry, my hearing must be going. I didn't hear you finish that sentence."

"You really don't want us playing good mommy and bad spanking daddy on you," Deadpool informed Bob seriously, poking him again with the toe of his boot. Taskmaster resisted the urge to smack a palm against his forehead, intensely grateful for his mask that concealed any and all eye rolls.

Bob gulped. "B-but, I need this job, because, y'know, my wife." At the mention of his wife, Bob seemed to have found a scarier object than both Taskmaster and Deadpool combined, because he straightened with additional resolve and set his jaw with pitiful bravado. "So I'm sorry, but I can't be seen helping you. I'd be fired at best, or probably fed to the fish at worst. And there's no life insurance benefits to speak of, or, well, any kind of benefits, so." He trailed off, deflating as they continued to stare at him in silence. "So."

"Well," Taskmaster said at last. "That sounds perfectly reasonable."

Bob brightened. "It does?"

Deadpool nodded. With a wild grin, he flicked out a large automatic pistol. "It does. So Bobber, looks like we're gonna have to _coerce_ you."

Bob, Agent of HYDRA, gulped.

***

Turned out, the R&D wing was only two corridors away, through a nondescript gray door with a handle bar ominously labeled DO NOT EXIT – ALARM WILL SOUND. 'Research and Development' hung above it, in small, block-printed letters.

Taskmaster eyed the door. The sign had been made with computer paper and tacked up with crooked scotch tape. Someone had stuck a bright yellow post-it beneath it with _Keep Out THIS MEANS YOU, BRAD_ scribbled on it. 

"Nope, this doesn't look suspicious at all," Taskmaster muttered to himself, after staring at the door in disbelief. He was acutely aware that time was running out; he could hear screams coming closer, the whine of a repulsor, the clang of something that was very probably a vibranium shield, and the more ominous and much less welcome _snikt snikt_ accompanied with more agonized screams. "Nope. Not at all." This couldn't possibly be the R &D wing, though it'd been labeled as such on the digital schematic. Inoffensive paper sign on what looked like an emergency exit aside, there was no numerical keypad, no biometric lock, no retinal scan, nothing that indicated that top secret things were kept inside.

"Can I go now?' Bob asked in a plaintive tone. He squirmed around the punishing grip Taskmaster had on his ear.

"Can't put a finger on it," Deadpool said, in the tone of someone who couldn't remember if they'd forgotten to turn off the gas, "But my Spidey-senses are telling me something's not right."

"You don't have any –" Taskmaster caught himself just in time before he could finish the sentence, that would lead into an inane conversation of little logic and even less sanity that would just encourage Deadpool and waste time. He absolutely would not indulge Deadpool any more. He refused.

Shouted exclamations were discernable now, and coming closer. He yanked Bob closer and grabbed his nose in a pincer vise between index and middle fingers. "Bob," he said in the same tone of even friendliness he’d used earlier. "This doesn't look like an R&D lab to me, Bob. What kind of scam are you trying to pull here, _Bob?_ "

Bob's voice came out strangled. "I don't know!" At Taskmaster's warning squeeze, he yelped louder, "How'm I supposed to know, I wasn't assigned guard duty here, this is where it is! There were budget cuts!" He nearly wailed this last.

Taskmaster glowered at him some more, then slowly relaxed his fingers. Bob collapsed on the floor. "God, you are such an jerk," he blurted, glowering up at Taskmaster as he rubbed his nose. Then, realizing what he’d said, he flung his arms over his face as if readying for a blow. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Shut up," Taskmaster told him, heavily, kindly. He’d definitely been hanging out with Deadpool too much; after days of Bob cringing and trying to hide behind various objects like an ostrich, he'd started to feel a reluctant affection for the guy, the kind of absent concern one had for a particularly stupid pet. The guy was just doing his job, albeit one of the most dangerous in the world, even if he was terrible at it. Taskmaster sometimes had to battle the urge to pinch Bob’s cheeks and get him a job he was better suited for. Maybe in an office somewhere where he wouldn’t have to deal with anything more threatening than a broken stapler. 

_You’re going soft in the head,_ Taskmaster told himself, and ignored the little voice that told him that sympathy or even pity was a liability for a merc.

Thankfully, those moments came only rarely, sandwiched between moments of incoherent irritation in which he had to practically sit on his hands to avoid strangling the man.

"Go on, get lost. Unless Deadpool needs you. 'Pool? Wade?" he turned around.

The door was open, and Deadpool was gone.

He faced around again, and Bob was gone, too. 

He stood alone in the corridor that was rapidly filling up with smoke. The yellow post-it fluttered to the ground at his feet.

"NNGGRRRRGH," Taskmaster told the echoing corridor at large, and pushed through the door after Deadpool.

It led into another corridor, this one of the ghastly lime green that put Taskmaster in mind of hospitals, which was unfortunate because he hated hospitals. He couldn't remember why he hated them, his photographic reflexes stealing bits of his memory like a pickpocket, so insidious that he didn't notice what was gone until he looked for it. It bothered him sometimes, like how he couldn’t remember the name he’d been born with or much of anything about his life before the age of twenty-five, but in general he couldn't miss what he didn't know was missing, and all he knew right now was that the sight of the hospital green made his palms sweaty and his vision tunnel.

Which was fucking bullshit. He was Taskmaster, voted #1 in _Merc World_ , and he didn't have _panic attacks_. He clenched his fists and forced himself to march forward along that shiny, overwaxed linoleum floor, and kept going, counting his breaths and his steps in the sudden quiet, going until he heard a shout, "Back! Get back! Or – or I'll shoot!"

"In my pants!" Deadpool, saying it all conversational as if it were something normal people said in a hostile situation with weapons pointed at them, and as if he expected whatever poor sod guarding the whatever to actually reply to his weird non-sequitur. 

Crouching, Taskmaster peeked around the corner to find not a gun or several pointed at Deadpool, but a – a –

Okay, Taskmaster didn't know what it was. Except that it was so big it was almost comical, like you saw in cartoons about superheroes busting up a villain's lair.

If Taskmaster had to hazard a guess, he'd call it a death ray.

"Wow," Deadpool said, sounding impressed. "Does that thing get HBO?" The scientist, a scrawny balding dude of middling height, ghastly pale in the style of people who spent entirely too much time indoors under fluorescent lights, made a strangled sound born of the frustration of long years of never being published in peer-reviewed journals. He jabbed a number of keys in sequence, and the death ray whirred around to point directly at Deadpool's idiot face. Deadpool just stood there like a particularly stupid puppy, munching on a hot dog, dripping mustard on the floor, and watched with avid curiosity the point of the death ray zeroing right between his eyes until they crossed.

Where had Deadpool gotten a hot dog?

He was going to have to rescue Deadpool again. It was going to keep happening again and again, Taskmaster suspected, for the rest of his life. Which, with Deadpool involved, could optimistically be measured in months, not decades or years. Maybe even days. Hours. Taskmaster could be called many things, but 'realistic' always topped the list.

The death ray whined, powering up. Blue and red lights along its sides lit up ominously like the hazard lights on an airport runway. The scientist shouted in triumph. The tip of the ray glowed brighter and brighter. Taskmaster gathered himself into a tight coil then burst out of hiding in a straight line for Deadpool's red and black ass.

_SHINNGGGG._

The katana went flying out of Deadpool's hand as Taskmaster tackled him with all the force of a pro-football linebacker, then the corridor erupted into a virtual hurricane of flame and shrapnel when the death ray exploded impressively in a gout of billowing smoke and fire. 

"What did you do?" Taskmaster shouted just as the scientist screamed, "My baby!" punctuated with wailing and gnashing of teeth that was audible over the new cacophony of the R&D wing’s fire alarm that had now decided to join the party.

"Just how do you manage to make everything blow up?" he added after another moment, pushing himself up on his arms to stare down at Deadpool. This was honest curiosity, but follow-up fell to the wayside as he felt a hot spot growing on his back, which probably meant that his SHIELD-engineered, supposedly fireproof cloak was on _fire_ , and also as the adrenaline ebbed he became dimly aware of blood sliding down his front and down his arm to fill his glove, and oh yeah, pain. Hot gouts of it, radiating in throbbing waves that made his head go light and floaty. Looking down, there were metal shards sticking out of him. Embedded into him. 

"Jesus Christ," he hissed, seizing a particularly big one sticking out of the meat of his bicep and pulling. The pain exploded in a white hot supernova behind his eyes, and he had to grit his teeth to keep from screaming. More blood slipped down his arm.

"Tony," Deadpool whispered. His eyes were wide. 

"I hate you," Taskmaster informed him through clenched teeth. "Just so we're clear." Deadpool was still staring at him with concern as if he actually _cared_ , which was really not a totally unknown quotient to Taskmaster, Taskmaster wasn’t a total sociopath. But this, they weren’t doing this—this— whatever, so he just told him more gruffly than necessary, "Why don’t you go see what that asshole with the death ray is doing?" 

He was playing it cool, just as if he wasn’t bleeding everywhere – there was nothing quite like white to showcase every little nick and life-threatening impalement – but he needed space to assess the damage, and that was really hard to do with Deadpool staring at him like a stricken deer in headlights. 

"That was the morphogenic actuator, actually," Deadpool corrected, hesitating as if he'd really rather stay. Taskmaster just wanted him to leave, to be the normal familiar Deadpool he used to be, complete lunatic and full-on narcissistic asshole, because Taskmaster knew how to deal with that Deadpool, not this one. This one, post-Cable, who was apparently feeling grateful for Taskmaster saving his life (again) and guilty for getting him into this mess to begin with, and actually giving a damn about someone other than himself.

The scientist broke their détente for them with a conveniently timed laser gun aimed at Deadpool’s head. It missed him but just barely, only burning off an ear. The man squeaked in terror as they rounded on him. Evidently deciding that he had a pressing appointment elsewhere, he whirled and beat feet down the corridor and around the corner as if he was trying to qualify for the Olympics.

It also had the effect of nicely distracting Deadpool like the poster boy for ADD he was, and in a flash, Deadpool was on his feet and charging off after the guy, ululating something incoherent and ridiculous Taskmaster couldn't make out but sounded suspiciously like the Tarzan howl.

Finally left in peace, as much peace that could be had in a hallway rapidly filling with smoke and the alarm blaring at ear-splitting decibels, Taskmaster took stock of his injuries.

It was as bad as he thought. Penetration injuries galore, his back was singed, and even though his torso was protected by armor, his ribs ached from a direct hit from a large chunk of what looked like the death ray’s nozzle and were possibly broken. The shrapnel sticking out of his arm and thigh had possibly hit major blood vessels, judging by the blood that was filling his glove and boot. What he wouldn’t give for a thoroughly overpowered healing factor like Deadpool’s, he thought. Well, blessings were wasted on drunks and the certifiably insane.

Right. Crouching here, wondering at his newfound resemblance to a pincushion wasn’t going to change the fact that there was a mission to be completed, because he was damned if he would have the most unpaid, aggravating week of his life for nothing.

He got himself to his feet, pulled out what he could, wrapped his cloak around what he couldn’t, and staggering only a little, let himself into the first small room on the right. His bad luck still held, so of course it turned out to be a janitor's closet.

Taskmaster was in too much pain to even relieve his feelings with another well-chosen expletive. He just sighed, and turned and shuffled out.

Thankfully, the fifth room on the left turned out to be the one he was looking for – a situation room filled with banks of computers that glowed on and off in standby mode. 

He sank into the chair with a grateful sigh and was attempting to immerse himself in the database in the name of ignoring the way his cape was stuck to him with blood by the time Deadpool returned, towing the scientist behind him by the scruff of his decidedly stained lab coat.

"Sit down," Taskmaster told Deadpool. "The data is almost done downloading."

Deadpool shoved the scientist forward. "Fix him," he demanded.

The guy, who was pimply and had greasy black hair, glared back at him sullenly and wiped his nose with a grimy hand. "I'm not that kind of doctor."

"Then why do you have a 'Doctor' in front of your name, _Doctor_ Pizza Face?!" Deadpool shook him hard.

"Ow!" the guy shouted, flailing his arms out for support. "You sweaty dickhole!"

"Leave him alone," Taskmaster said wearily. "He probably does research, not like, medical stuff." Christ, it was getting hard to think. And normally the guy would annoy him too, but he couldn't think of a single advantage to killing him or even slapping him around. Right now either of those things would require moving, and he really hated doing things for no reason.

Unlike Deadpool, who, as far as Taskmaster could tell, almost always did things for no reason, or for no discernable reason to sane people. Obviously this scientist had never heard of Deadpool, because he was continuing to glare defiantly at the merc and was slinging insults around as if he weren't lucky that this wasn't two years ago, before Deadpool had been softened up. Two years ago, he might've lost fingers just for looking at the merc sideways.

Except—except, okay, this dude was really getting on Taskmaster's nerves now, because said nerves were sizzling and his breath was coming short and he _really_ didn't have time for this. With his good hand, he slipped out a tranq dart out of his utility belt and flicked it into the guy's neck. 

The guy stopped in mid-insult, his eyes rolling up into his head, and collapsed.

"You just... you just did that—really injured, without even looking. Why is that so hot?"

"It's not my fault your standards are low." 

"Yeah, well...you smell funny." 

"I’m fine, Wade," Taskmaster said. "You can quit looking at me like I’m going to die or something."

Deadpool sat down, hitched his office chair closer and didn’t quit. "You keep saving me," he said after a moment in which he was obviously rooting around for an opening conversational gambit in which Taskmaster wouldn’t stab him.

"Unfortunately. Maybe you should stop trying to get killed."

"You don’t _need_ to save me," Deadpool said more to himself than Taskmaster. "I mean, I do have this healing factor."

"Maybe I’ve got better things to do than staple your head back together."

"Nobody tries to save me."

"Shut up," Taskmaster snapped, suddenly furious. Self-pity would’ve been understandable, even tolerable, but the way Deadpool said it all matter-of-fact, as if it was simply a truth so self-evident he was surprised he even had to say it at all, made Taskmaster finally fall off the edge of restraint and say, "Shut up, for fuck’s sake. You want friends? You want family and people you can depend on, or do you want independence and money and nobody to tell you what to do? You need to decide if you want to be a superhero or a merc, but _you can’t be both_. So decide, or _shut the fuck up_."

Deadpool seemed to shrink in on himself. "I did. I tried. Nate even fixed my brain, tried to fix _me._ " He trailed off. "Didn’t take."

Taskmaster was feeling distinctly lightheaded now, the room starting to gray out in long, slow pulses like the incoming ocean tide, taking his consciousness out to sea with every wave. _82% complete_ , the screen told him, the little hourglass icon turning over and over endlessly. Tearing his eyes away from the glowing screen to look at his friend, he said, "Do you remember that time you busted me out of prison just so you could show off, drum up some business?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that."

 _"Sorry?"_ Taskmaster demanded, pulled back again from the brink of gray by Deadpool’s words and momentarily forgetting his point. "You’re sorry about it? What is wrong with you? You shouldn’t be sorry about that, that’s who you are. I meant what I said then. You’re a good merc. A merc who’s trying to be a good person. That’s what you do. You do what you gotta do. Don’t – don’t let –" 

"Tony? Tony, I sure hope you’re not making like Dorothy in the poppy fields because-- Tony!"

"Qui’ shaking me, asshole," Taskmaster slurred. The intrusive hands didn’t let up and he nearly took a swing at Deadpool, but the telephone lines were down and his hands wouldn’t cooperate.

"Hey man, it’s not the 90’s anymore, bloodied and emo isn’t fashionable anymore." 

"Says the guy who still uses katanas and belt pouches," Taskmaster mumbled. "Quit shaking me, I told you."

The computer bleeped at them. _100% complete,_ it said. Outside the door, someone ran by, shouting, followed by the crackle of lightning and more of those ominous slides of metal on metal.

“Don’t die on me, Tony,” and god, Taskmaster hated the way Deadpool’s voice trembled.

"I’m not. Get the data stick out," he snapped. "Hurry up, you want to get arrested?" 

"Chimichanga says what?"

"You really can’t help yourself, can you?"

They stumbled out into the corridor, Taskmaster under his own steam but Deadpool hovering disgustingly near. Running feet thudded in the corridor. They tried to avoid these but it was impossible to triangulate the exact location over the sounds of battle and explosions and shouts going on somewhere very close by. 

They rounded a corner and practically ran into a gaggle of greensuits. They all stopped and regarded each other in a surprise that was almost comical. Then the ones in the back raised their guns. Just before they could fire, Deadpool grabbed his shoulder and shoved him down a side corridor and then they were running. Taskmaster tried to remember where the exits were, except it was hard to think and all the hallways were identical. Then they were going up some stairs, and they burst out into a large cafeteria.

"Weaz?" Deadpool shouted, tapping the communicator on his belt. "Weazy! Come in!"

"Stop," a mechanical voice said, and it was Iron Man. Iron Man, in their path, his hands raised, repulsors aimed straight at them. "Stop right there. Stop – hey!"

Taskmaster, combining Spiderman and Daredevil abilities though to be honest, he wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing in the burst of adrenaline that overrode the weakness and pain, jackknifed in the air behind him and disabled him with strategically placed explosives. As Iron Man reeled, Taskmaster landed behind him, stumbling and only staying upright by sheer force of will. He joined Deadpool in dashing towards the opposite end of the cafeteria, feeling blood sloshing in his boot with every step.

"Tony –" 

Clenching his teeth against the pain and dizziness that had returned like an avalanche, he charged for a door that said EMERGENCY EXIT, hoping it didn’t simply lead to another mislabeled department. Just—get out, get to the transport hidden just outside the base, and he – he'd go home. He would go home and feed THE CAT and have a drink, and pretend none of this ever happened. 

They plunged out into cool, night air. The roof. They'd made it. 

"Tony?"

"Shut up," Taskmaster gritted. "I am getting you out of here and getting this mission done if it kills me."

"I can oblige," an unmistakable voice growled in a feral tone, and there came a SNIKT. A yellow and brown blur flew out of nowhere to tackle Deadpool in mid-stride. One shining claw sliced through Deadpool's neck.

Deadpool's body stumbled forward under its own power for another couple of steps, then collapsed onto the graveled rooftop. The head rolled to a stop at Taskmaster's feet. 

Wolverine straightened, sniffed, then cracked his neck back and forth, staring at Taskmaster meaningfully.

Fuck. _Fuck._

"For heaven's sake," Iron Man said, clomping up. His armor was streaked with soot. "Do you have to do that?"

"Easiest way to shut this dickhead up," Wolverine replied, obviously used to people thinking he was some kind of murderous psycho, because he _was_. "Where's the data, bub?"

There was no use pretending he didn't know what they were talking about. "I'm not here for that," Taskmaster lied, because lying on the fly? He could do.

"I don’t know that he isn't telling the truth," Iron Man said. "The data doesn't have much lucrative value. And the people who'd want it either don’t have the money or wouldn't stoop to hiring a mercenary, especially one as expensive as him."

Taskmaster tried not to feel flattered.

"Then what is he even here for? He sure as shit doesn't work for free."

Okay, Taskmaster definitely felt flattered. "There's this morphogenic actuator," he volunteered, because that was plausible; HYDRA couldn't have expected to hang onto a scientific discovery like that for very long. Not that they'd been the ones to develop it. It'd belonged to AIM first, and from there it'd been a long round robin of thievery because god knew those organizations were full of unoriginal fuckheads who couldn't think of anything else to do.

Iron Man turned, apparently very interested. "Actuator?"

"Yeah, yeah." Taskmaster said. He hoped they wouldn't notice him surreptitiously pressing the button on his belt, which would signal Weasel to come pick them up. "Transforms you on a molecular level to whatever you want. I got hired to pick up the specs."

"Wait," Wolverine said, looking not at all convinced. He squinted at him. "Then what is that loon doing here?" He pointed at Deadpool's headless body.

That was rich. Pot calling the kettle black, except being a cold-blooded murdering sonuvabitch was apparently hand-waved when one was dubiously aligned with the forces of good. Taskmaster had little patience for superhero types; hypocrites, all of them, except maybe Captain America. "How should I know? We're not friends."

"Guess we can search them when they're both dead," Wolverine growled. "If'n you got the data, you might as well 'fess up. You're not looking too healthy there, bub."

"Better than your face," Taskmaster snapped back. Good, Wolverine took the bait. Growling, those shiny claws sliding out, he stepped forward.

"Jesus, Logan. Quit that." Iron Man sounded impatient. "Taskmaster, you're under arrest. Come quietly and make this easy on everybody, okay?"

"How about no?" With one swift motion, Taskmaster scooped up Deadpool's head and flung it at Iron Man with all the force and accuracy of a baseball pitcher. Iron Man was a decent person, which Taskmaster had been betting on, so at first he raised his hand to blast it apart with a repulsor, then remembered that it was _someone's head_ , and dodged aside just in time to avoid getting smacked in the face. He batted it away in an involuntary, disgusted gesture. The head flew back toward Taskmaster, then hit the floor with a sodden smack and rolled along before coming to a rest near the door.

Using the distraction, Taskmaster lunged at Wolverine. A split second later, the man launched himself at Taskmaster, whisper quick and all compact power like a jungle cat. His claws sliced past Taskmaster's face with only a hair to spare as Taskmaster twisted out of the way, praying that a dizzy spell wouldn't hit him at the wrong time because of all the people he never wanted to get into a head-to-head with even if he were at full capacity, Wolverine was numero uno on the list, wily and strong and fast and overpowered as the man was. 

But for a second Wolverine's back was exposed, just enough for Taskmaster to sink a knife into the back of his neck and then boot him off the edge of the roof. _There_ —Taskmaster thought in relief, right before the man twisted around in mid-fall like a cat and sank one adamantium claw deep into Taskmaster's chest. It sliced through his armored vest like butter – a quick one-two, in and out – before the man disappeared over the edge with what was unmistakably a crooked, evil grin and that claw held up like a middle finger.

That motherfucker.

Goddamnit, where was Weasel? Taskmaster stumbled back from the edge, for one endless moment whether he'd win the battle against the crashing waves of pain followed by clouds of unconsciousness seriously in contention. Because – because – the shock of being punctured had cushioned the pain but now it came in bright gouts that turned each breath into flame, adding to the sobbing agony of the previous injuries that had been exacerbated by the fight. And if he hadn't been losing blood by the bucketful before, even crudely staunched by his cloak, he was sure losing it now.

The roof exploded in a hail of shrapnel and flame, wind gusting from the force of the blast so hard that his cape flapped and debris flew through the air. The lights of a transport nearly blinded them. "Somebody call a cab?" Weasel said over the loudspeaker. "Say, is that Iron Man? Oh my god, it is. Oh my god, oh my god."

"Ask for his autograph later," Taskmaster tried to shout over the whine of the aircraft, even as he scooped up Deadpool's head and staggered over to Deadpool's body like a cripple. There was blood everywhere, some of it Deadpool's, a lot of it his. It made the going slippery as he shoved the head roughly at the body, severed end to severed end, hoping madly that everything was the right way up because he sure didn't have time to check. He just prayed that Deadpool's healing factor would do the job before Wolverine recovered enough to climb back up and slice them all into kibble.

"Oh my god, this is so exciting, it's such an honor to meet you—"

"Glugh," Deadpool said even as Taskmaster was still shoving, feeling like a kindergartner madly trying to make his dried out play-dough stick together. Deadpool’s hands swam feebly against the concrete. 

"Good, good," Taskmaster said fervently, for once in his life not sarcastic at all. "Get the fuck up, Wade, we've got a million problems and one's walking right at us."

"Yeah," Iron Man said, his tinny voice sounding not at all impressed. "Did you miss the part where you're under arrest?" He paused, and his voice dipped into the registers of concerned, even kind, though his raised repulsor hand didn’t lower an inch. "You sure you don't want to come with us, Tony? Even if Logan didn't get you pretty good, you're looking about two breaths away from bleeding out."

This got Taskmaster's hackles up. Sure, he'd spent enough time in Avenger custody to practically count as an honorary Avenger, but that didn’t entitle Tony Stark to address him with that level of heavy pity, or to use his first name. "Sorry, getting arrested isn't on the agenda today."

Deadpool sat up clumsily and turned to study Taskmaster, his eyes widening in shock as he took in the way Taskmaster was seriously listed to one side, one arm limp, the other clutched to his chest, and the blood – god, so much blood everywhere that Taskmaster's cape did nothing to hide. His costume was more red than white, now. Taskmaster coughed, tasting the iron-bitter tang of blood on his lips.

He had only one shot at this, one chance at getting away. He had to regroup and if Deadpool didn’t make it back with him, he'd come back later for him, who was probably on the side of good just enough for the Avengers to cut him some slack in the 'beating up then throwing in supermax' department.

But Deadpool had other ideas. Even as Taskmaster fingered the specialized EMP grenades in his toolbelt that he'd invented just in case he ran across problems of the armored suit kind, wondering if he could do a passable imitation of Spiderman and get the grenades lanted in the right places without falling on his face and probably being videoed by Tony Stark to be posted on YouTube and be mocked forever, he heard a gravelly, "I'm sorry, Tony.” 

In one swift movement, Deadpool swept Taskmaster’s feet out from under him and a hard hand karate-chopped him across the back of the neck. Everything went black.

That betraying dickhole.

He hated Deadpool so much.


	3. Chapter 3

Taskmaster kind of wished that, along with the standard restraints that kept him from calling on any of his abilities, that he'd been given a dose of tranquilizers too. Just—anything, because in this transport, a converted semi-truck trailer lined with reinforced cells, the guy in the holding cell across from him was really not the last thing Taskmaster wanted to see before his ass got slapped back into the Raft. Not just the crazy; jesus christ, that face. Only a mother could love that face, if the mother were a cross between a pug and a donkey. It was skull-like under the white sodium lights that gleamed off his shaved head, throwing the planes of his face into sharp relief.

Taskmaster knew the guy, of course. The world was a small place.

"Taskmaster," the man said, friendly enough. "What's up?" His wrists were bound in thick manacles by his sides, but his fingers were free. He was cracking each knuckle one-handed, one by one, followed by a snap of the fingers. It was almost like a ritual, the _crack_ followed by _snap_. Just – crack, snap, crack, snap, each sound like a knot of wood popping in a fire drilling straight into Taskmaster's brain like a rusty spoon and rattling behind his teeth, making his toes curl like he'd bitten into a really sour lemon. 

"Bullseye," Taskmaster replied in a neutral tone. 

Bullseye was one of the most dangerous men he'd ever known, if Taskmaster was honest with himself; a textbook example of a psychopath if Taskmaster had ever seen one: a tight, sweaty bundle of unpredictable crazy and mean, mean, and more mean, made even more dangerous by a whole host of insecurities and a sincere love of killing. Even other mercs avoided Bullseye; in the general community of mercs, there were those in it for the money, others in it for power and glory, and then there were those, like this one, who would do it for free if bloodshed were involved. "Need help there?"

"Oh, this?" Bullseye shrugged. "Naw. Take just a minute." He cracked a knuckle. Taskmaster cringed inwardly in spite of himself. "Whatcha in for?"

 _My supposed friend knocked me out and left me for the Avengers while he escaped with the data that I nearly died stealing_ , Taskmaster didn't say, leaving it at, "Tax evasion." Which was also true, because the Avengers couldn't charge someone with trespassing somewhere that didn't belong to the Avengers in the first place, doing something they weren't really sure what. But then US and international law and even the Geneva Conventions had always been selectively applied when it came to people who made a career operating in a moral and legal gray area (who they grandiosely called 'super-villains') like Taskmaster.

"Yeah? Cool."

Crack. Snap. Snapsnapsnap. Taskmaster thought that Bullseye was shutting up then, which was super, because Taskmaster could really use some alone time to think about the direction his life had taken. He'd spent the last two months in an ICU so top secret that even the doctors and nurses had been swaddled behind anonymizing containment suits. He'd been shackled to a hospital bed behind triple-panelled walls and biometric locks, and so drugged up he hadn't known if he was at land or at sea. And now that he was no longer on the brink of death here he was, once again on a prison transport. Because no good deed went unpunished, even if one was tricked into doing that good deed in the first place.

Alex would never let him live this down.

Turned out, Taskmaster had been overly optimistic. "You were with Deadpool," Bullseye commented.

Taskmaster closed his eyes and tried to ignore him.

"Yeah, don't try to front. People know you've been running with him lately." An edge crept into that forced-casual tone.

Taskmaster still didn't answer, but he silently cursed his luck. The merc grapevine was just as gossipy and full of drama as _Real Housewives_. Everyone had heard of Bullseye's beef with Deadpool, and Taskmaster didn't need to be associated with that shit, thanks very much.

Goddamn Deadpool.

Although the thing with the vehicle and missile and the Transporter-esque physics had been pretty cool.

"Weird, cuz didn't you hear Deadpool’s gone soft?"

Taskmaster rolled his eyes. Despite the casual bantering tone as if they were friends, the man was watching him like a hawk. Bullseye knew the stakes as well as he did. Whatever they were both here for, they were mostly likely here for the same thing, and mercs could be teammates but never trusted. Especially this one, who was entirely too cocky considering the total sum of his achievements thus far was getting his ass righteously kicked by Daredevil and pretty much every other goody-goody costume, though his civilian body count was truly impressive.

"Yeah, he totally bought into that mutant hype over in Providence," Taskmaster replied grudgingly, for the sake of getting along until this interminable ride was over.

The dude grinned at finally getting a reaction from him, more a feral snarl than a smile. "Funny as hell, right? Wilson in some crazy peace cult, who'da thunkit?" 

"Yeah, I guess."

"You think him and--you know--did it?" He leered.

Taskmaster stiffened. "That's ridiculous." 

Those small eyes continued to watch him, even as those fingers kept snapping away. "Didn't know you two were such buddies." 

"We're not." 

"Bet Wilson loves going on his knees. Hey--hey man, I'm just kidding. Sorry. Jeez." Not sounding apologetic in the slightest, still watching Taskmaster closely, that cool amusement slick in his voice. Taskmaster got the impression of a self-satisfied tomcat hiding in a corner motionless except for the twitching of its tail, watching a mouse gaily bop its way to certain death. 

Taskmaster was about to toss all caution to the wind and suggest very strongly that the man shut his piehole for all their sakes. He was beyond any doubt that he could take this fucking pissant, who, if one really got down to it, was just a poor man's version of Hawkeye and a wannabe Daredevil, to boot.

"Hey, watch this," Bullseye hissed just as Taskmaster was opening his mouth. The snapping and cracking sped up. Bullseye cocked his head to the right, where the tromp of boots was coming closer.

"Alright, Lester," a south Texan drawl, and a black-suited officer stepped in front of Bullseye's cell. "It's time to stop that infernal knuckle-cracking, you got it? You're driving us all crazy up there."

"Why, yes'm, officer," Bullseye smiled, that grin wide and completely cold. Taskmaster had barely a fraction of a second to realize what he was doing before there was a series of tinier cracking and tearing sounds, and then the officer and her partner were flung backwards clutching their throats, gurgling blood. 

A certain part of him approved – Bullseye had used his fingernails; it was gross, but ultimately practical – while the other part of him was occupied with going _oh fuck_ because now there was a crazy guy with a beef with Deadpool and therefore him by association working his way out of his manacles while staring unblinking at Taskmaster, that over-friendly hard smile still on his face. It was creepy, the way it seemed divorced from the shiny blankness of his eyes. Taskmaster was locked up tighter than a clam at low tide, with extra biometrics and randomly applied clamps to defeat his abilities. He knew approximately 430 ways to pick a lock, even one as sophisticated as this one, but he didn't have the time to pick them as Bullseye got his own electrified door open somehow and paced across the narrow corridor to Taskmaster's cell.

Taskmaster was suddenly cognizant of the difference between crazy and _crazy_. Deadpool wasn't right in the head, was a down right lunatic, but as long as you handled him right and stayed on his good side back in the old days and appealed to his conscience in the new, you'd be threatened a lot with dismemberment but generally did okay. Bullseye? Was _crazy_.

Bullseye leaned against the jamb. "Well, hello, asshole," he purred. He punched the lock to Taskmaster's cell, and the door slid open.

Taskmaster straightened, lifting his chin, because he wasn't afraid of this asshole, just pissed off. Pissed off because he thought he was probably going to die trapped in a prison of his own making, and by this dude. It sucked, but he'd go out hard.

"Okay, no," a gravelly voice interrupted. "No, no. If anybody gets to sexily threaten Tony here, it's _me_."

Bullseye didn't even spare a second for surprise. Like a cat, he whirled, hurling a small projectile that Taskmaster couldn't identify at Deadpool and pegged him square in the forehead. 

Deadpool blinked. "A screw? Come _on_ , Lester, that is so cheap." He clawed at it. "S'okay, who needs a brain to fight anyway?" His words were slurred. He couldn't get a grip on the screw through his gloves, so he pulled off his mask. The screw fell to the floor with a clink.

Taskmaster groaned silently and started working at the locks faster while Bullseye was still distracted. To his relief, after a long moment of cramping fingers, something clicked and the restraints slid silently open. 

"Stupid cheap-ass in a cheap-ass blue suit with a cheap-ass…"

Deadpool was hopping around like a rabbit on crack, going into gyrations and contortions to avoid the various projectiles Bullseye was firing at him. He'd whipped out a pistol and was firing back wildly, and the entire space was filled with flying deadly projectiles, one of which whined past Taskmaster's temple. He couldn't even tell who'd fired it and oh man, Taskmaster was _so fucking over this_. 

"Hey," he said in a pleasant well-isn't-the-weather-nice tone at Bullseye's shoulder, and when the man finally noticed him, Taskmaster seized him by the scruff of his neck and one arm and swung him around, slamming him into the restraints Taskmaster had just vacated.

That mean grin was wiped off Bullseye's face as thoroughly as if it'd been slapped off, which suited Taskmaster right down to the core. Two mouthy crazy mercs in one place was two too many, thank you very much. The expression that replaced it was that of a petulant child who'd just had his lollipop taken away. Before Bullseye could start shouting, however, Taskmaster punched him in the face.

The man's head snapped back, blood spurting from his nose, then he slumped, unconscious.

The entire thing had taken less than three minutes.

"That was sooooo hot, Tasky," Deadpool said. "Was that for me?"

Taskmaster glared at him. "We need to get off this transport, now. Before the guards in the front miss their friends here and come investigate."

"Yeah, yeah." Deadpool put his gun away – Taskmaster didn't see where, didn't _want_ to see where, because Deadpool didn't have a holster and he was very afraid Deadpool had just put the gun down his pants – and stretched out like he'd just finished a particularly relaxing bout of yoga. "Swiped a motorcycle from the X-Men. I think it belonged to Wolverine. So, you know, just for shit and giggles and a little revenge on the side. It's following this truck on autopilot." He dropped his arms, which he'd been waving wildly to illustrate his point, looking suddenly uncertain. "I mean, if you want to. You know. Come with me and all that."

Taskmaster stared at him for a long time, long enough for Deadpool's face to fall even more and he started shuffling in place.

"Aw, come here," Taskmaster growled, and pushed up his cowl just enough to shove Deadpool against the wall and kiss him.

Deadpool melted into it, leaned forward and chased it as Taskmaster pulled away. He opened his eyes and his face lit up like a Christmas tree. 

Taskmaster winced. "That was a thanks. For getting me out." He thought, then amended, "Well for getting me out of someplace you got me into."

"And saving your life, too, don't forget that." Deadpool fiddled with his mask. "So we're friends?" 

Damn, he didn't have to look and sound so hopeful. "Yeah. I guess." 

Deadpool's smile widened, a genuine smile that Taskmaster had never seen before, so happy that he couldn't look at it. "So like, I know you want to go back to New York and all, but on the way there, you wanna help me do this one thing? Find a kidnapped girl for her family. Pays pretty good. Low risk."

Taskmaster strode over to a locked cabinet by the exit, dragging the downed guard with him. He stuck her finger in the biometric lock and the cabinet clicked open. He took out his confiscated weapons and started re-arming himself. "No. Knowing you, it's free."

"It's not free," Deadpool protested, but weakly, following him to stand by the door.

Taskmaster rolled his eyes. "Yeah it is."

"No, it's – well, okay, _maybe_ it's a _little_ free, but –"

Taskmaster stuck a finger in his face. "If we're doing this, you can't let anyone know. Like Alex. Especially Alex. If this gets out, I'm ruined. I'm a world-class, A-list metahuman mercenary. I don't do pro bono."

"Heh heh, you said 'bono'."

Taskmaster, readying to slap open the exit door release, did a full body twitch. He closed his eyes and prayed for strength. "Shut u-– fuck, never mind."

Deadpool grinned. "You love me."


End file.
